


Grounding Her

by BossBaby



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Comfort, F/M, Nightmares, Post-Neo World Program (Dangan Ronpa), Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-23
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-27 02:20:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15014522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BossBaby/pseuds/BossBaby
Summary: Ever since she woke up from the Neo World Program, Peko can’t stop having nightmares. Fuyuhiko tells her that she can lean on him. So she does.





	Grounding Her

_Peko is back on the seamount, sword in hand. Surrounding her are Monokuma’s samurai robots. They swarm her in endless waves even as she cuts through them one by one. Her arms are burning, but she knows she can’t stop._

_She slices through what feels like the hundredth one...but all of a sudden it’s not a samurai robot. It’s the face of her young master. And she can do nothing except watch the sword – **her**  sword – slice across his eye. Blood blossoms across his face. She drops her sword, horrified._

_She is cradling him in her arms as he lays there, dying. She is about to die too, but somehow that realization doesn’t scare her as much as the thought of him dying does._

_And it would be all her fault._

_She feels the first blade enter through the middle of her back. The sting of the harsh metal is excruciating. She ignores the pain. All she can think about is how to protect him. She looks down at him sadly. His young face is drenched in blood, blood that she’s spilled. His eyes are closed and she can barely make out the rise and fall of his chest. She holds him closely to her._

**I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.**

_The next cut goes through her right shoulder, and she struggles to keep her hold on him._

**I won’t let them have him.**   _She bites down on the inside of her cheek hard._

_The third blade sinks into the side of her waist. She is filled with so much remorse._

_He was supposed to be safe. Get away from all this._

_She had failed. Failed him._

**Useless.**

_He had called to her not to leave him. It had broken her heart into a thousand agonizing shards that had been more painful than the slashes she was receiving now._

_As her vision grows darker, the last thing she sees is her own blood seeping out all over his body._

Peko jolted up in her bed, her heart racing wildly. Her eyes darted frantically to assess her surroundings. Her gaze landed on the tiger print design painted on her folding screen and it jerked her into the present. She was in her cottage on Jabberwock Island.

It had been…a dream.

Peko was drenched in sweat. She dragged herself out of the bed and headed to the bathroom.

After peeling off her clothes, she stepped into the shower. The cold spray of the water helped to ground her. However, her heart was still beating violently in her chest.

She could not suppress the mounting fear that Fuyuhiko was in danger. Her mind kept conjuring up the image of him dying in her arms, covered in blood.

She turned off the water after a quick rinse and reached for the towel. She dried quickly and slipped into a clean pair of sleepwear.

Peko paced back and forth across the small space of her cottage. She tried to even her heart rate by taking deep, calming breaths. It wasn’t helping. She could not shake off the foreboding feeling of panic.

_What if he–_

She tried to be logical. They had been on Jabberwock Island for six months now. With no killings. No trials. No executions. No one was in real danger anymore...with the exception of Nagito at times when he decided to go on a tirade about hope, and their classmates threatened to cast him into the ocean.

But no matter how hard she tried to reassure herself of their newfound experience of peace, she could not suppress the lingering terror of her dream.

Peko exited her cottage. She did not have to go far. She walked past three of her classmates’ cottages before stopping in front of his.

The air was cool and refreshing.

She hated to disturb his sleep at this hour. But she just had to be sure.

Fuyuhiko had told her that she could come to him if she ever needed anything. At first, the very idea was completely alien to her. She was strongly averse to the thought of inconveniencing him in any way.

_“You don’t have to try to do this all on your own,” he had told her. “You can lean on me, or whoever, if you want.”_

And over time, Peko was made to see that it was not necessarily a  _bad_  thing to rely on others. In fact, every day she was confronted with the notion, experiencing her classmates –  _her friends_  – working together and supporting each other to rebuild their new lives.

Peko finally felt like she was a part of something. And she was trying to be different too. Wanted to be different than her past self.

And so, with every fiber of her body protesting, she raised her arm and knocked briskly at his door.

For a moment she thought he would not hear it, but then the door creaked open. Relief flooded through her immediately.

Fuyuhiko stood there, blinking at her sleepily. His face quickly awakened when he saw who it was.

“Peko? Shit, you okay?” He asked, his good eye darting to survey her up and down, looking for signs of injury.

“Forgive me,” she said. “I just needed to see if you were…okay.” Her voice was small. The realization of how pathetic she sounded caused her face to flush with embarrassment.

His expression softened. “Yeah, I’m good.”

_Obviously._

She was about to apologize once more for waking him and excuse herself to return back to her bed when he spoke again.

“Bad dream?” He asked, leaning against the doorframe.

She hesitated before nodding.

“Yeah. I fucking hate when that happens.”

His words were all she needed.

“You, uh, wanna come in?” He asked, standing back and opening the door wider for her.

Peko wanted to say no, didn’t want to disrupt him anymore than she already had by waking him up at 3:00 AM just to ask if he was okay.  _I shouldn’t be this needy._

He sensed her hesitation. “I can never get back to sleep after. Shits on my whole night. If you want some company…” he gestured inwards. “Or not. Whatever you want.”

His words warmed her. And gave her the courage to accept his offer.

He closed the door behind her after she stepped in.

Peko watched him fumble around to find a shirt. Only then did she realize that he had been wearing nothing but a pair of light sweatpants when she had woken him. She tried not to stare at his back as he shifted through his closet.

“Ah sorry, it gets too hot at night,” he muttered before pulling a t-shirt over his head.

“It’s fine,” she whispered.

He disappeared briefly into his bathroom and she heard the faucet running. He returned to her, carrying two glasses of water, one of which he offered to her.

She took it gratefully and nodded her thanks. The coolness of the water was refreshing to her dry throat.

“You wanna talk about it?” he asked, taking a seat down on his bed. He motioned for her to join him.

“Not really,” she replied truthfully, sitting at a respectable distance from him at the edge of his bed.

He seemed to frown slightly at that, but didn’t say anything. He took a sip of his own water.

“Forgive me for waking you,” she said ruefully.

“Tch. It’s no big deal,” he waved her off.

“ _Seriously_ ,” he emphasized when he saw the guilt written on her face.

She fell silent, gripping her glass of water tightly with both hands.

“Hey, Peko.”

She looked up at him.

“Let’s go for a walk? We’d finally have the beach to ourselves without Akane and Nekomaru ripping it to fucking shreds. How ‘bout it?”

“Like this?” She asked, gesturing to their nightwear.

“I won’t tell if you won’t.”

Peko was grateful for the distraction.

It felt like he was always taking care of her these days. But she did not mind it so much as she would have in the past. It was admittedly and surprisingly nice. And he always gifted her with such a beaming smile whenever she accepted his help that she would have gone along with anything if only to see him light up like that.

“Okay,” she agreed, standing up.

The boyish grin that he gave her almost made the nightmare worth it.

* * *

It was a month later when it happened again.

This time Peko was viewing her execution from the sidelines. She watched herself slashing away at the relentless samurai warriors. Then she spotted him. He was running towards her dream self.  _No!_  She wanted to scream at him, wanted to yell at him to run the other way.

She watched helplessly as her condemned self raised her sword and sliced at him. Except this time, things did not progress as they had. Instead of immediately reaching for him, she towered over him, sword still at hand, its bloody blade gleaming.  _What are you doing?_  She wanted to shout at herself.

Her dream self had a maniacal look in her eyes and a warped smile played at her lips. Peko panicked. She watched as Fuyuhiko looked up at her despair version, fear coating his face.

 _Stop, stop, stop!_ Peko begged herself.

Then, her dream form aimed her sword delicately and drove it straight into the young master’s chest. She watched him cough up blood. So much blood. He collapsed at her feet. Her despair self laughed with delight.

A voiceless scream was tearing at her throat when she woke up.

Wrenched out of the nightmare, Peko lurched out of her bed. She staggered into her bathroom, and without flicking on the light, dry heaved into her toilet. The bile burned her throat, and she coughed painfully.

She sat there on her bathroom floor for a few minutes, her mind still racing from the aftermath of her dream.

Eventually, she pulled herself off from the ground. She brushed her teeth in a haze. Then after tossing her sweat drenched clothes onto the floor, she stepped into her shower. She stayed there for awhile, punishing herself with the harsh coldness of the water. She leaned her forehead against the shower wall, panting heavily.

The vision of Fuyuhiko’s life snuffed out in front of her by her own hand was overpowering. She could not get it out of her head.

When she finally turned off the faucet for fear of wasting communal resources, she was still trembling.

She pulled on a fresh change of clothes carelessly. Then headed for his cottage.

Surprise flashed across his features when he opened the door, followed by concern.

“You okay?” He didn’t even wait for her response before stepping back to admit her in. She followed him.

He dug around for a shirt. “What happened?” He asked quietly.

“Y-You…I…” She couldn’t bring herself to say it.

_I killed you. Then laughed._

She was going to hyperventilate.

“Hey. Look at me.”

She tried to focus her gaze on him.

“I’m right here. You’re here.”

She took in a shaky breath.

“Okay to touch you?” He asked. She noted mutely.

She felt him wrap both his arms around her carefully. His warmth grounded her. She tried to focus on that, the sturdiness of his body. Her arms hung loosely by her side.

He was here. He was alive. He was safe.

He was holding her.

The shaking in her body eased a little. She released a deep breath.

“I’m really happy you’re here with me, Peko.”

His words coursed through her whole body. She felt like she was going to cry. She dropped her head onto his shoulder, into the curve of his neck.

This time he didn’t suggest a walk. Instead they stood in the middle of his room while he held her so they wouldn’t fall apart.

* * *

The third time it happened, Fuyuhiko was no longer startled to see her. He just let her in. He was already dressed this time.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

A few moments of silence passed and he thought she was going to say no.

“Mahiru was there,” she said quietly.

“Hm. Kind of like how it played out…or was it something different…something twisted up?” That happened a lot for him. Where blurs of different memories would wind itself together into a distorted reality. He sat down on the edge of his bed.

“Something different,” she replied, looking down. Peko took a seat beside him, without him having to ask.

“That’s the fucking worst.”

She nodded her head in agreement.

“How do our brains even come up with this shit?”

“Was anyone else there?” He continued, wondering how much she would divulge.

“Your sister,” she said carefully.

_Ah._

“Guess that makes sense,” he tried to keep his voice from wavering.

“I failed to save her…again,” she whispered, eyes down.

“That wasn’t your job,” he said harshly. Then, softly, “I’m the one who failed.”

They sat in the stillness of their own consuming guilt.

“Goddamn it. Do you think…do you think we’ll ever be okay, Peko? Get over all that shit? Like, get…better?” He looked pained.

“I don’t know,” she said slowly.

He released a bitter breath. “Yeah. Me neither.”

“Maybe that is okay though.”

He looked up at her.

“Maybe it is okay that we’re…not okay.” The moment the words came out, she was worried how nonsensical she sounded.

He stared at her for a long time.

“Yeah…” he finally said. “Yeah, you’re right. We've been through a lot, huh?"

She gave a tentative nod.

He leaned back on his bed, hands behind his head. “I miss her. Even though she was a fucking brat.” 

Peko did not know how to answer. So instead, she laid down next to him, head turning to face him.

“Do you remember that time when we found out she’d broken into the liquor cabinet at home?” He reminisced.

Peko’s lips curved at the memory. “She refused to let me carry her back to her room. She claimed that was what brothers were for.”

“Tch. She almost barfed all over me too. That was probably why she wanted me to do it. The little idiot.”

His good eye was closed now. They fell into an easy silence.

She watched the rise and fall of his chest. It was mesmerizing. She wanted to reach out and take his hand into hers, but she resisted.

Instead, she decided to count the freckles that dusted his cheeks. The act was soothing. Peko felt her eyes drift shut too.

* * *

When Peko woke, she was disoriented. There was a light blanket that was covering her that did not belong to her. In fact, as she surveyed her surroundings, nothing in the room belonged to her. She flushed when she realized where she was.

Her eyes fell on him across the room, where he looked uncomfortably positioned on the small futon.

She was mortified.

The bed gave a soft creak when she got up and she cringed when it woke him.

She watched him look blurrily around before his gaze landed on her.

“Mornin’,” he yawned, not fazed at her presence.

“F-Forgive me,” she fumbled, cheeks heating. “I did not mean to spend the night.”

“You sleep well?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied honestly. “I usually have great difficulty returning to sleep.”

“Yeah. Same.” A beat of silence, then – “It was, uh, kind of nice having you here.” He said sheepishly.

She felt her cheeks flame. She had found it surprisingly nice too.  She should tell him so, she thought.

“Yes,” she said in a small voice.

He rewarded her with a shy smile before asking her to join him for breakfast.

* * *

Fuyuhiko bolted up abruptly in his bed, heart pounding. As usual, it took him a few minutes to realize that he was just having a nightmare.

He groaned in frustration, his mind still racing.

He had been back in the trial room. His classmates were all accusing Peko of the murder that he carried out. He kept yelling at them to look at the evidence, which clearly implicated him. But they ignored him. Peko had been in the center of the room, strings attached to her body like a marionette. Every time he tried to reach out to her, she would be forced away from a Monokuma puppeteer who laughed wickedly at his pitiful efforts.

He was just about to drag her off for execution when Fuyuhiko woke.

He often had that dream. It was probably in his top five.

 _How fucking original_ , he thought sarcastically to himself.

Luckily he didn’t have to go through Peko’s execution which was what usually followed.

He sighed harshly before dragging himself to the bathroom to splash cold water on his face and rinse his mouth. He almost always woke with the taste of cooper at the back of his throat. Or maybe he just imagines it.

Fuyuhiko glanced at the clock by his bed as he walked out of the bathroom. 4:27 AM.

_Fucking great._

He toys with the idea of going to see Peko. He’s so glad there’s even a Peko to go to that he jumps at every opportunity to be in the same room as her. He was such a fucking mess before she woke up.

He was just about to head over to her cottage when he heard a soft knock,  _her knock_ , at his door.

“Hey,” he answered breathlessly. “Hey, I was just about to come over.”

Peko entered when he stepped back to let her in.

“I saw your light on,” she replied. “Were you having difficulty sleeping?”

“Nah. Nightmare woke me up.”

“Would you like to talk about it?” He almost laughed hearing Peko echo his usual words to her.

“Tch. It was the second class trial where you…well, you know,” he didn’t want to elaborate and she picked up on his meaning. “The fucking usual…What about you?”

“I was unable to fall asleep,” Peko answered.

“Well, I’m glad you stopped by,” he said. His stomach gave a small leap at the faint blush that crept up on her cheeks.

“Would you like to join me for a walk?” she asked him.

“Y-Yeah,” he replied, feeling a rush of happiness at her offer.

Peko really was different these days. In a good way. Not that who she was before was bad in any way. But she no longer called him ‘young master’ to his relief, although it took many prompts on his end for her to finally try to deliberately halt that conditioned response.

She seemed to be trying to learn about herself too. She was starting to express herself more, her thoughts and how she felt about different things. Despite all their years together, Fuyuhiko felt like there was always something new to discover about her. And he was just as eager to learn about the person she was growing into.

He couldn’t imagine what it was like to go from viewing yourself as nothing but a weapon to be used to seeing yourself as an individual. He knew that she still struggled with that mindset on a daily basis. He could see it come out every time she was confronted with making a decision about something, even if it was with something as seemingly simple as what she wanted to drink with breakfast.

That was why it filled him with overwhelming warmth whenever she suggested something to him on her own.

They headed to the beach together. There was a light breeze in the air.

He watched it ruffle gently through Peko’s hair. It always took him a few seconds to become accustomed to her with her long hair hanging loosely past her shoulders. It was a different kind of beautiful than what he was used to.

He also tried hard not to stare at the flowy white tank top and loose black shorts that she wore as pajamas. He had to chastise himself every time he caught himself ogling at her. But he couldn’t help it sometimes, she always seemed to take his breath away no matter what state of dress she was in.

They walked at a comfortable pace, leaving two sets of footprints in the sand. He asked her about her time at the farm with Gundham, who had accepted Peko’s help to look after the animals there. Fuyuhiko couldn’t help but smile at Peko’s attempt to contain her enthusiasm when she spoke about it, but the look in her eyes betrayed her excitement.

When they returned to his room, Fuyuhiko was going to offer to walk Peko back to her cottage, but something stopped him. He saw her eyes glance briefly to his bed before she turned to face him, hands clenched together. He flushed, heart pounding.  _Did she…?_

She made no movements towards leaving. It looked like she wanted to say something, but she was looking down at the floor.

He waited for a few moments, but it became clear that she was struggling.

So he tried. “Uh…D-Do you…” Her eyes flickered up to his face when he spoke.

He cleared his throat. “Do you want to stay here tonight?”

“I can take the futon,” he added hastily.

 _You presumptuous little shithead._  He panicked to himself when she didn’t respond.

He was about to open his mouth to apologize for being a fucking idiot when she spoke.

“Okay, thank you.”

He tried not to look too stunned. “S-Sure thing.”

He reached for the extra pillow and blanket that she held out for him, trying to keep his hands steady. Their hands brushed briefly during the exchange, and Fuyuhiko was thankful for the darkness of his room to hide the red of his cheeks.

He laid down on the small futon, unable to muster frustration at the discomfort of the small frame.

“Goodnight.” He heard her call from his bed.

“Night, Peko,” he replied quietly, turning his face into the pillow to hide the smile on his lips.

* * *

Fuyuhiko had started sleeping with a shirt on despite the heat in case Peko stopped by during the night. He had mixed feelings about it - it pained him every time to see Peko in distress, and yet he felt a sort of selfish satisfaction with her seeking comfort with him.

She always looked at her most vulnerable standing there in his doorway.

It had become a routine for them. He would make a quick trip to the bathroom to splash some water on his face while she waited on his bed. He would return with two glasses of water for them.

“You wanna talk about it?” He would always ask.

Sometimes she would try and he would listen. Other times, he would suggest a walk if she was too agitated.

Tonight, Peko seemed open to talking.

“I dreamt of… _her_ ,” she said quietly, fingers fidgeting with the edge of his blanket.

Fuyuhiko knew immediately that she was referring to Junko Enoshima. His fists clenched involuntarily at her memory.

“She was b-back. She was…here,” Peko sounded uncharacteristically anxious.

“Hey,” he said softly, taking one of her hands into his. He felt it trembling slightly. “That bitch is gone. For good.”

“We assumed that before too,” Peko whispered. She had a point.

“Yeah…you’re right. But she’s not here anymore. She can’t fuck with us now. Or at least…we can’t let her.” Fuyuhiko knew that a piece of Junko’s despair would always be a part of them. Hell, they had lived with that for  _years_ , and it wasn’t just going to go away anytime soon. But they could at least stop it from letting it dictate how they lived now.

“What if she comes back again?” Peko asked, the fragments of her nightmare clinging to her present.

“Then we’ll tell her to go fuck herself. I won’t let her hurt us again. I’m going to protect you Peko, I fucking swear it. And…I know you’d do the same for me.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Peko replied immediately, and he felt a wave of relief when that glimmer of fight returned back to her eyes.

“Worse comes to worse, we’ll send the Ultimate Hope Boy after her and she’ll be running for the hills. Er, Hajime, not Nagito,” he clarified. “Although now that I think about it, who knows which one would be worse…”

Peko managed to smile at that, the tension in her shoulders dissipating.

“Thank you for letting me stay here. It helps,” she said.

“It helps me too,” he replied genuinely. “Do you want to stay here tonight?” He was always nervous to ask her, even though it certainly would not be their first time.

“Is that okay?”

He wanted to tell her that she doesn’t need to ask if it’s alright every time. But he knows that that would always be part of her nature. Although Peko was still uncertain about whether it was okay to do what she wanted, at least she was doing it.

“Yeah. Here, take the bed.” He was halfway off the bed to go to the small futon as usual when he felt her hand wrap around his forearm.

He looked at her.

“You should stay,” she said softly.

“S-Stay?” He asked dumbly.

She gestured at the bed to clarify.

“Y-You sure about that?” he asked hoarsely, wondering if he was misunderstanding her meaning.

“Yes…” 

He felt a little dizzy.

“Please,” she added.

 _Well, fuck._ He could never say no to her when she asked for something.

“Alright.” He tried to act unflustered about it.

She shifted over to make room on the bed, leaving no misinterpretation of her intentions.

He slipped under the covers with her, taking extra care not to accidentally brush up against her so much so that there was a real chance he was going to fall out of the bed.

Peko gave him a soft smile that made his heart beat so loudly he was sure she could hear it.

* * *

The next day Peko was in her cottage when her doorbell rang.

Her heart gave a strange leap when she was greeted with the young mast–  _Fuyuhiko’s_  face.

“Yo Peko. Can I come in?”

She nodded, admitting him in. She closed the door behind and turned to face him.

He looked nervous about something.

“What is it?” she asked curiously.

“Here. This is for you,” he thrust out his hand awkwardly. “If you want it,” he added hastily.

Peko looked down to his open palm.  _A key?_

She looked back at him, bewildered.

“It’s a copy of a key to my, um, cottage. That way…you can get in when you need to…” His cheeks were flushed a bright red.

_Oh._

She picked up the key gingerly. “Are you sure this is okay?”

“Of course it’s okay!” he insisted.

A warm sensation coursed through her at his gift.

“Thank you,” she said, holding the key close to her.

“No big deal,” he said, but the pleasure at her response was painted all over his face.

* * *

It was two nights later. Fuyuhiko was in a deep sleep when he was stirred by a noise at his door. His mind was still in a sluggish haze when his door opened quietly and someone slipped in.

He knew it was her the moment she approached his bed. The familiar scent of her that was unmistakably Peko registered instantly even in his drowsy state. He felt the bed shift with her weight. He turned to face her groggily, trying to chase the sleep away.

“Nightmare?” He asked gruffly, as he watched her slip under the covers.

There was a beat of silence, then–

“No.”

She said it so softly that he almost missed it. But the pinkness of her cheeks was unmistakable.

He was awake now. His mind tried to process their current circumstances, but failed, so he just ended up gawking at her stupidly.

“O-Oh,” he finally managed. “Well…that’s good.”

“Yes,” she replied bashfully.

He turned over so they were facing each other.

There was so much he wanted to say to her in that moment.

But he settled on “Night, Peko.”

He would say everything to her one day.

“Goodnight…Fuyuhiko.”

That was already enough for him.

He remained mesmerized by the serene expression on Peko’s face long after her eyelashes fluttered closed.


End file.
